Economic growth on the Caspian shore

By Diplomatisches Magazin

In December, Diplomatisches Magazin published an article by the Berlin political scientist Mattias Dornfeld, which was devoted to the presidential elections and post-election prospects of Azerbaijan. Vestnik Kavkaza presentsa  translation of the article.

Azerbaijan, which possesses rich energy resources, has turned into the most economically developed and strongest state of the South Caucasus due to its balanced and strategic energy policy and diversification of economy.

After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, Azerbaijan was the most underdeveloped state among the three South Caucasian countries; it went through dark times of the Nagorno-Karabakh war and its internal consequences. However, today we can say that Azerbaijan travelled an impressive road of modernization. Due to the thoughtful policy of Ilham Aliyev’s government, the country has no significant problems with neighboring regional and world powers. When the oil pipelines Baku-Tbilisi-Supsa and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan were built, Russian monopoly on pipelines from the post-Soviet space to Europe and world markets was broken for the first time; the project of the South Gas Corridor boosted its geostrategic importance. When TANAP is built in several years, the first significant volumes of Azerbaijan gas will be transferred to European markets.

The strong economic fundamental is an important condition for political stability in the country and a coherent implementation of internal political goals set by the government in Baku.

From this point of view, the good organization of elections should be pointed out. Forty international observers from the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament headed by Robert Walter and Pino Arlacci stated in their final report that a fair, free, transparent voting process was observed on the election day. The report points out that no attempts to influence the voting process were registered, while the whole elections took place professionally and peacefully.

The Caspian state doesn’t see its future either in NATO or the Customs Union or the Eurasian Union. At the same time, membership in the EU is not interesting for the country either because in this issue Azerbaijan is oriented at Turkey and sees obstacles which Ankara faces on the path to the EU. Azerbaijan has rich energy resources and is independent from financial transfers from Brussels.